The Legend of Gokarna
The next morning, as their car wound through the Western Ghats toward Gokarna, Aaji began her tale. Aadhya’s eight-year-old brother Rohit bounced excitedly in his seat.
“Long, long ago,” Aaji began in her storytelling voice, “the demon king Ravana wanted to become the most powerful being in the universe. He performed terrible penances to please Lord Shiva…”
As the story unfolded—Ravana receiving the atma-lingam, being tricked by the gods, trying to uproot it with his twenty arms—Aadhya found herself captivated despite her scepticism.
“When Ravana couldn’t move the lingam, it became fixed at Gokarna forever,” Aaji continued. “But here’s the part most people don’t know. There was a Brahman named Hemadpant who used to worship there. When the giant Bibhishana came to the temple, poor Hemadpant was so frightened he hid in a bin!”
Rohit giggled. “He hid in a dustbin?”
“Not a dustbin, beta. A special container for used prayer materials. And while hiding, he ended up in Bibhishana’s turban! All the way to Lanka he travelled, trembling like a leaf.”
“That’s impossible, Aaji,” Aadhya protested.
Aaji smiled mysteriously. “Is it? Or is it a way of preserving memory? In Lanka, the story says, Hemadpant saw beautiful curved letters that flowed like rivers. He learned them and brought them back hidden again in the giant’s turban. These became the Modi script.”
They reached Gokarna by afternoon. Standing before the ancient Mahabaleshwar temple, watching the waves crash against the shore, Aadhya felt something shift inside her. The temple walls bore inscriptions—some in scripts she couldn’t read.
“Look carefully,” Ajoba pointed to some curved letters on an inner wall. “What do you see?”
Aadhya gasped. “Those curves… they look like your newspaper!”
“Temple records,” Ajoba nodded. “Administrative documents. You see, temples weren’t just spiritual centres—they were banks, schools, and record keepers. They needed efficient writing systems, too.”
The Human Hard Drive
That evening, in their beach resort, Aadhya couldn’t stop thinking. “Ajoba, is the Hemadpant story real?”
Ajoba pulled out his diary—written entirely in Modi script. “What is real, beta? Is the Ramayana ‘real’? Is the Mahabharata ‘real’? These stories carry truth in different ways.”
“Dr. Joshi told us the historical facts,” Ajoba continued. “Balaji Avaji Chitnis, the Mughal court, Shikasta script—all documented. But families also passed down the Hemadpant story. Both versions preserve something important.”
“I don’t understand,” Aadhya frowned.
Papa intervened. “Think of it like computer code, Aadhya. There’s the source code—the historical facts. And there’s the user interface—the stories that make it memorable. Both are needed for the program to run.”
“Our family,” Aaji added, “served as Modi script writers for generations. In temples and in government. We preserved both traditions.”
Ajoba opened his diary. “Want to try reading something?”
The curves seemed impossible at first, but slowly, with Ajoba’s help, Aadhya decoded her first word: “वारसा” (varasa—heritage).
“You know what makes you special, Ajoba?” Aadhya said suddenly. “You’re like a human encryption key. Without you, all those documents are just pretty curves.”
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